The Final Act
Location: Entrance Hall
Time: 06:55 AM
After hours of trying to survive, only Lucas and Carmesim remained.
Rafael and Hope had been taken.
Rafael was dragged away by his shoulders, seized by a cluster of skeletal hands, flesh torn open to the bone. The stench of death followed as he was pulled somewhere above their plane… somewhere they couldn't reach.
Carmesim watched it happen.
Like a cruel déjà vu.
His eyes—wide, fixed on her.
The promise made at the entrance now felt like a sick joke.
The screams.
The desperation.
A body lifted into nothingness, without a single trace of where it had gone.
Hope, still horrified, tried desperately to hold onto him. She screamed for hours.
Carmesim vomited in a corner, abandoned and shaking.
Lucas held her hair back, careful, steady—
But his fingers trembled violently against her curls.
Hope couldn't walk anymore.
Her eyes were empty.
Dull.
The light that once made her feel alive was gone.
What remained looked more like an abyss… wide open and devouring.
The smell of sulfur rose like thick smoke, wrapping around them, suffocating.
— CARMESIM!!!!!
The scream tore Hope's throat apart.
Blood spilled from the corner of her lips.
And then—
Before either of them could react—
She was dragged.
By her hair.
Carmesim's fingers barely brushed hers—
But it didn't matter.
She was gone.
And now—
What remained of them stood there.
Still whole.
Or at least… what was left.
Fragments of sanity clinging by threads.
— Just five more minutes! — Lucas held Carmesim steady. Blood ran from a cut on her arm.
She had struck something.
A dark mass.
It bled when a shard of the broken watch pierced it.
The sound that followed—
Wasn't a scream.
Wasn't human.
The wind howled.
Footsteps dragged.
Lucas ran, pulling Carmesim along.
Her vision flickered.
She saw it—
Everything going wrong.
The world turning gray.
Blood becoming the only color left in that grotesque equation.
— It's coming. — Carmesim growled, voice breaking between fear, anger, and tears.
The wall clock read 06:58.
Friday.
The 13th.
Coincidence or not… it would end here.
Her fear.
Her grief.
All of it.
Right here.
Nothing could take that hope from her.
At least… that's what she thought.
The principal appeared at the end of the corridor.
Distorted.
A smile far too wide for his face.
His body bent at impossible angles.
Wrong.
Unnatural.
Inhuman.
And yet—
Perfectly fitting.
Because he was never human to begin with.
— RUN! — Lucas shoved Carmesim toward the gate.
His footsteps echoed behind her—
Too close.
Right at her neck.
She could swear he was still there.
Miraculously—
The gate opened.
Sunlight broke through.
07:00 AM.
Carmesim ran outside.
But when she turned back—
Lucas was gone.
— No… no…
She trembled, clutching his jacket against her chest as if she could fuse it into her body.
Marcos wasn't there to admit the supernatural was real… even though she would've given anything to hear his voice again.
Hope didn't jump onto her back, burying her face in her neck, complaining through nervous laughter.
Rafael wasn't there with that reckless grin, ready for another impossible adventure.
She couldn't imagine a life without them.
Couldn't imagine a world where they simply…
Didn't exist anymore.
Reduced to names on empty graves.
Frozen in moments.
Good or bad.
Forever.
Carmesim flinched at a scream—
Only to collapse when she realized—
It was her own.
She cried for the dead.
For the ones who had walked willingly into their end.
A stupid game.
A cruel challenge.
One no one should ever accept.
The school looked…
Normal again.
But then—
A voice whispered in her ear:
— You escaped… for now.
Carmesim fell backward, then forced herself up, running toward the nearest police station.
— You will be the most delicious soul of all… crimson flower.
Laughter echoed—
Shaking the bones of the building.
Even the crows refused to cry out for that place.